Pingaring Townsite

Child Places

• 06913 Pingaring Hall
• 06948 Pingaring General Store and Post Office
• 06912 Pingaring CWA Rooms

Statement of Significance

The town is significant for all that it represents in community cooperation and determination to succeed.

History

The railway came to Pingaring in 1931, opening for rail traffic in 1932. Workers came to the area to join in the construction of the railway line and the water tank to provide water for them and the trains. With the establishment of the railway line, the community focus at North Burngup, 5 miles south east of the siding (in the Lake Grace Shire), moved to the area of the siding by the 1940s. The school relocated to Pingaring, on the south of the townsite, in the Lake Grace Shire, despite moves to locate it on the west of town, the parents perceived a great danger of the children being run over by the "weekly" train. In 1933 the unofficial post office was established in the store which had been erected at the siding in May 1931. The town of Pingaring was not a gazetted town, but an evolution of buildings on land donated by Luke Price. Price was a bachelor farmer who made significant contributions to the community. The town developed slowly, given the Great Depression created difficult times throughout Australia through the 1930s, and no sooner was the recovery being experienced than Australia went to war. After World War Two, the community of Pingaring prospered and established their community organisations, the CWA, the Golf Club, lobbying for a new school and hall. So the 1950s reflect the greatest period of development in Pingaring Town. The 1950s was a time of prosperity, the wool prices were up, and the use of trace elements for wheat facilitated the opening up of marginal land. The store was established in 1931, when the railway line came through, and McCallum operated the post office from a building where the CWA is now, from 1937 to about 1950. It was after 1950 that the town expanded. In 1954, Alf Baker, June Hansen's father built a house for June & her husband, next to McCallum's. McCallum's place was demolished, and the post office operated from Hansens until 1956 when Mrs Byass took it over and operated again from the General Store. In 1954 a new school (Lake Grace Shire) was also constructed, together with schoolteacher accomodation. The CWA was constructed between 1954 -56 and the Pingaring Hall was built in 1956. In 1955/56, Stan Horsmann built a garage and ran a mechanical business while living in the garage until he built a brick house on the block in 1959. In c1963 he relocated a former Southern Cross (Bullfinch) mining house into Pingaring town to provide accommodation for his mechanic. Some years later the house burnet down. Horsmann's garage was the first business besides the store and post office, to establish in Pingaring. In the 1980s Wyatt established a house in town by relocating a workman's house from Bill Andrew's property. In 1996, there are 4 houses and streetlights in the township of Pingaring, in addition to the public and commercial buildings.

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